Substance-Use Facts

Night Shift Workers and Heavy Drinking

Compared with other workers, night-shift workers who suffered poor sleep quality exhibited the highest frequency of heavy drinking (17.6%). Multiple logistic regression analysis demonstrated that compared with day workers with good sleep, night-shift workers who experienced poor sleep had more than twice the odds of heavy alcohol consumption (odds ratio 2.17 [95% confidence interval (CI), 1.20-3.93]). Shift workers who did not work at night and day workers with poor sleep were not at increased odds of heavy drinking. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/

Children Raised In Addicted Homes

79% of adolescent runaways and homeless youth reported alcohol use in the home, 53% reported problem drinking in the home, and 54% reported drug use in the home.

Biological children of alcohol dependent parents who have been adopted continue to have an increased risk (2-9 fold) of developing alcoholism.

One study comparing children of alcoholics (aged 6-17 years) with children of psychiatrically healthy medical patients found that children of alcoholics had elevated rates of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder) measured against the control group of children.2

Drug/Alcohol Related Deaths

Nearly 88,000 people (approximately 62,000 men and 26,000 women) die from alcohol-related causes annually, making alcohol the fourth leading preventable cause of death in the United States. https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/

More people died from drug overdoses in 2014 than in any year on record. The majority of drug overdose deaths (more than six out of ten) involve an opioid. And since 1999, the number of overdose deaths involving opioids (including prescription opioid pain relievers and heroin) nearly quadrupled. From 2000 to 2014 nearly half a million people died from drug overdoses. 78 Americans die every day from an opioid overdose. http://www.cdc.gov/

Treatment Successes

Unfortunately, when relapse occurs many deem treatment a failure. This is not the case: Successful treatment for addiction typically requires continual evaluation and modification as appropriate, similar to the approach taken for other chronic diseases. - For the addicted individual, lapses to drug abuse do not indicate failure—rather, they signify that treatment needs to be reinstated or adjusted, or that alternate treatment is needed. https://www.drugabuse.gov/